Promo Video

The EP “The SelfSames” was released on 18 January 2012. All tracks were recorded, produced and mixed By Paul Bannister and, composed By James Alexander Bell, who is a songwriter based in Preston.

For the past year，these two guys have been recording tracks together and now have decided to sell them as EPs on Bandcamp.

Played all 6 tracks last night, on the whole these EPs are easy listening ones which have got brilliant structures and great vocals (Manolis Manoli and Simon Howell). The final results are the fresh distinctive sound and very cathy melodies that differentiate all the tracks in the EPs, very natural and intuitive.

For several personal favourites such as I Need Air, If She Asks Me, 5 Steps Behind, Lookin’ OK, I felt I liked them from very first note – fresh and full of engergy, upbeat feeling. Honestly, there is something in their music that reminds me of The Beatles.

Above all, this EPs puts great tune, excellent production,fantastic melodies all in one, and I think it’s gonna be definitely worth putting these songs in my iPod anyway.

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Why was this EP named as Bare Bones?

I chose the name Bare Bones because that’s essentially what it is, the bare bones of songs. I would love to have a full band sound on some tracks, but I don’t have the patience or the friends.

What are you trying to tell people through Bare Bones?

My Two Homes is basically I felt that I lived 2 lives, one in the UK and 1 in France. When I was in France I didn’t really think about England, and vice versa. So I decided to leave Paris and I realized it would be the end of a big part of my life, which was really upsetting. The song is about saying goodbye to a very close friend. He’s more like a brother now.

Broken fingers is about how I feel when I start writing a song. It’s quite difficult for me to play one chord and not instantly think of a million songs that have used it, and unless you’ve experienced something truly unique your lyrics are going to be based on themes already used for years. So it’s about struggling to write.

Older is fairly straightforward, it’s about being older and thinking about where you hoped you would be.

And Parents was written about my parents.

Can you briefly describe the music making process of this EP?

I started recording with just a guitar and a microphone, and as I had the time I added a few more things. I asked my friend Mark McCabe help me out with a few recording bits because he’s a lot better at it than me. Check him out he’s a great musician.

What are the challenging parts in creating this EP?

I had a lot of time to record and finish this, and to be honest at one point the songs were really complicated and it started to get messy. I had 8 songs and they had keys, bass, percussion, even synth parts. I sat and listened to it one day and thought “This sounds awful.” so I stripped back the songs and kept the ones that were recorded best.

Broken Fingers

Older

My Two Homes

Parents

Thoughts from Unsigned Acts / Preston:

When you listen more closely to Bare Bones, each track has a slightly different tone and has a bit echo of different acoustic/pop bands. While on the other side, this very first EP could indeed derive benefit from some better production. On the whole, however, you could find what Man Of Glass is trying to achieve – he’s been worked hard on creating some great catchy and original acoustic/pop songs based on his personal experience, which is particularly evident in Broken fingers.

The fine lyrics, attractive riffs, and good vocals are all that matters. So you’ll be the judge!

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Unsigned Acts / Preston musician Manolis Manoli, also known as Manix, is approaching the end of his three year Music Production course at UCLan. Recently, he created a 5.1 Sound Design audio installation called “Amaurotic Soundscapes” and presented the piece at the Media Factory Main Theatre 2 of UCLan on April 28. The installation/performance was met with positive feedback from the participants and tutors who attended the show that night and has hopefully gained him a respectable evaluation for his final year independent project at UCLan. By taking away the participants senses, such as “balance and sight”, the main focus of the piece was to arouse the hearing sensory system separately.

“Amaurotic Soundscapes” in fact explores how a listeners’ mind constructs imagery based on the sounds that are heard, by stimulating the individuals mind in order to produce imagery according to the listeners perception of the piece. The piece portrays themes of “exploration, progression through sound and fear” said Manolis, “trying to lure the listener and guide the consciousness into a perpetually drifting and growing path of sound elements”.

Despite the complexities of sounds produced within “Amaurotic Soundscapes”, it is only constructed by three household objects and a Timpani drum, the items used were two metal drinking glasses, a wooden cabinet and a sewing machine, which were mainly chosen because of the materials in which they were made of and characteristic sound properties they obtained.. All recorded sounds were edited and manipulated by Manolis and mixed in 5..1 surround.

During the progression of the installation, the listeners were invited to lie on one of eight beds, which were formed as a circle in the centre of the room. The beds were accompanied by a pillow and resting on each pillow was a blindfold that had to be worn during the duration of the piece. Manolis was also performing with the piece as he stood in the centre of the circle with all the items he had used for the initial recordings of the sounds at his disposal, improvising and producing live sounds to accompany the 5.1 audio.

I was fortunate enough to be present at this event and participated as one of the listeners, my experience of the piece was truly terrifying as the atmosphere created by Manolis did indeed lure me to a world of frightening imagery, I was particularly effected by one sound that sounded to me like a slow pulsating heart-beat on the verge of death, this was a truly fantastic surround experience.

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Luke Jackson is about to release his first album, which is progressing rapidly in recent days. The name of it may be The Time Is Now. This is a new track from this album called Miss Rachel Zhong, which he has been working on for the past 3 weeks with FL studio.You can clearly hear the flute and Japanese string instruments that make this song more sounds like a Japanese style.

Getting the inspirations from the moments happened couple of days ago, when Luke strongly felt the necessarity of chilling out the flippancy nowdays, so he decided to make a new song only instrumentals to help relax.

Luke’s new album will be on sale soon at Willy Banjos and Action Records in Preston. Would be ace if you could go and give a try on the copies of his songs.

With a combination of attrative prizes, big brands sponsors, and substantial promotions, RTR is considered to be North West’s the biggest ‘battle of the bands’ ever held.

Massive campaign for public votes on Facebook for the past 1 month,With over 180 entries, many days of listening to music and 2 long days of debating, the bands of final 16 have come out. Defy the Sky have been officially announce they are the 1st band to be confirmed for the top 16.

Defy the Sky is a Preston based, Rock/Pop-Punk band consisting of members from many previous bands. Using all their previous experience they combined to create a feel-good unique sound. With energetic live performances and catchy hooks, Defy the Sky put everything into their music. Influences range from ACDC and Led Zeppelin to A Day to Remember and Lostprophets.

However, who do you think will win? With 4 tough heats starting only 1 month away it is almost impossible to say who will be in the final, not to mention who could win it as all 16 bands have the ability to win.

Tickets are at £3 each heat or £10 for all heats + The Final. More details see here.

So, big congratulations to Defy the Sky enter the Heat 1 and wish them the best of luck for the coming band battles.

Come and watch Jamie and his band to show your ultimate supports if you like? It should be a great night!